PRUDHOMME, ALEX - (340 - ENGLISH)

PRUDHOMME, ALEX - (340-ENGLISH)

PRUDHOMME, ALEX

Originally from Quebec, Alex Prudhomme arrived in the Yukon in 1897.  After having tried to be a minor, he became a building contractor.

In 1899, Alex Prudhomme and August Noel joined the Citizens’ Committee .  This was a pressure group which became a political party, the party of the Citizens of the Yukon. The 91 delegates of the party joined together in a convention representing 16 candidates.  Five of them accepted the nomination.  Prudhomme, a Conservative, was among them. After three days of counting the votes, Alex Prudhomme and Arthur Wilson were the winners.  The two men won the territorial elections of 1900  equally.  Therefore Prudhomme became the first Conservative elected in the Yukon. The local newspapers interpreted the results of the elections as a manifestation showing the rejection of the old administrative methods. Up until then the Liberal Government of Canada under Wilfrid Laurier named the civil servants responsible for the administration of the Yukon.  Prudhomme was defeated in 1903. The biggest success of Prudhomme and of Wilson consisted in the adoption of an ordinance or ruling from the Government protecting the minors’ salaries.

Prudhomme’s political career did not prevent him from continuing his building-contracting enterprise.  In 1901, he joined Camille Henry and Edouard Payment  who used a wooded area along the Nordenskiold River in the region of Carmacks.  The three men became associates in order to ask for a permit to undertake  an enterprise in Prudhomme’s Co name to build a sawmill.  Between 1897 and 1905 Prudhomme often asked for permits to cut wood.  He owned lot No. 19 in the H block in Dawson City.

Alex Prudhomme and his wife, Bridget Theresa Kileen were at the funeral of their daughter Mildred Helena on April 12, 1904 in Dawson City.

Ref.: Empreinte, vol. 11, pages 48-49